Day: March 20, 2014

My latest purchase! 🙂 I am now a proud owner of a Leica trio – M2, M8 and M9!

This was an unplanned buy. I was ready to shoot 35mm film last weekend but found my Voigtlander Bessa R3A shutter completely jammed. I tried the usual tricks to rectify the problem per YouTube but no luck. The Bessa’s are well known to be a poor man’s Leica and although they are great when they work I need a camera body I can rely on. For that reason I turned to Leica.

Leica M2 – Some call it the pinnacle of Leica engineering when it was released in 1958. I have one of the later ones with a self timer and rewind lever. It has a bright viewfinder with 35mm, 50mm and 90mm frame lines. If I want to use a 28mm lens I just use the entire viewfinder area when composing a photo.
Leica M2 vs. Leica M6 Classic – I toyed with the idea of getting the newer Leica M6. The M6 has a built in light meter but cost more than 1.5x the cost of a used Leica M2. I did not need the meter and wanted an affordable Leica film camera to mount my various Leica M lenses.

Leica M2 vs. Nikon FM – I already own a ‘beater’ or ‘user’ brassed black Nikon FM 35mm SLR camera. It was less than 5x the cost of the Leica M2 and I asked myself can I do without the Leica film camera. I slept on it but it my M2 purchase decision came down to my Leica M mount lenses (a mix of Leica, Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses). Their compact size, the focal lengths available and most importantly the fantastic image quality made it a no brainer. For a small film camera setup to thrown in a bag the Leica M2 wins every time. I still have my Nikon FM to use with some of my nice Nikon glass such as the Nikkor 200mm f2 AI-s.

I have wanted to get back into shooting film for some time and I have done almost none since I got my Leica M9 last year. Getting a Leica M2 film camera is the quickest and easiest way to get my interest in film photography back very quickly!

Leica M2 sample images will be posted as soon as I get chance to shoot some film and get the negatives developed at home.